US 10,517,626 B2 · Semiconductor tweezers and instrumentation for tissue detection and characterization

Abstract

Devices, systems, and techniques are disclosed for intelligent semiconductor based medical tweezers and instrumentation including microscale sensors, actuators and circuitry for tissue detection and characterization. In one aspect, a tweezer device includes a hinge structure to enable tweezing motion of the device for clamping a sample, two leg components coupled to the hinge structure, a plurality of microprobes configured on both of the two leg components, and an electronic circuit electrically coupled to the microprobes to process and/or transmit the electronic signals. The microprobes include sensors in a sensing tip structured to penetrate into the sample when the device clamps the sample and produce electronic signals from the sensors of a property of the sample, the sensors of the sensing tip including at least one of an electrode to measure an electrical potential, an electrical permittivity sensor to measure electrical permittivity, or a strain gauge to measure mechanical compliance.

Claims34

Dependent claims

A tweezer device, comprising:

a hinge to enable tweezing motion of the tweezer device;
a first leg and a second leg coupled to the hinge configured to clamp a sample;
a first microprobe and a second microprobe coupled to the first leg and the second leg, respectively, wherein the first microprobe and the second microprobe include sensors in a sensing tip configured to penetrate into the sample when the tweezer device clamps the sample and produce electric signals from the sensors of a property of the sample, the sensors of the sensing tip including at least one of an electrode to measure an electrical potential, an electrical permittivity sensor to measure electrical permittivity, or a strain gauge combined with a distance sensor to measure elastic properties of the sample;
an electronic circuit electrically coupled to the first and second microprobes and including a transmitter to wirelessly transmit the electric signals to a remote receiver;
and
an arm including the electronic circuit coupled to one of the first leg and the second leg.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Semiconductor tweezers and instrumentation for tissue detection and characterization

Life of this patent

Semiconductor tweezers and instrumentation for tissue detection and characterization

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims34